Dealing with LA Arco Elephants

[DragofLord]

So I am playing LA Atlantis I'm reasonably late in the game and have a lot of research (in the 7's in a few places), and am at war with Arco. They were essentially able to mulch an entire army of mine with 50 war elephants. That army also had an extensive amount of mages, including one able to cast growing fury. I really have no idea how to counter this. The resources lost to this fight combined with the fact that I am currently fighting two other nations really points to me that I'm probably doomed, but I would like to know what I at least could have done, if anything.

P.S. Really any counters to massed armored elephants would be appreciated. For other nations I would simply engage in raids and additional armies/bringing in an SC, but Atlantis seems mostly good at big battles, and I can't figure out a way to beat this stack.

[Eerywax]

As LA Atlantis, I'm thinking - Bone Grinding? Limp/cripple really limits the amount of trampling a unit can do.

[Shinuyama]

they have an MR of 6
put a few void eyes in some forgiving fathers, communion them up, cast light of the north star and spam enslave mind
ideally use the s1 ones as communion masters, so they don't default to paralyze
the first ones you enslave will tank the others, but bring a bunch of skeletons and other chaff just to buy time

full size earth elementals buffed with Ironskin and Body Ethereal will casually tank infinite elephants forever, bring 5 or so to make sure none sneak past

etc etc
there's a lot of solutions

weapons of sharpness and strength of giants and quickness on your high strength infantry will do it too with few losses
false fetters would be hilarious if you had indies from somewhere

[DragofLord]

I don't understand how 5 earth elementals are going to hold 50 elephants. I did try bone grinding, but the angakok refused to cast it and just did invulnerability instead. I also couldn't cast weapons of sharpness. I guess part of the problem is that I simply couldn't bring 5k gold in chaff to the fight. Ah well, that game's lost.

[Lawler]

With elephants, or any large trampling unit, you make them retreat, then they will attack their own side trying to escape if any get in their way, probably taking out their spellcasters on the way out. Enraging them, confuse, etc. also has similar effects.

Honestly, normal Elephants should be size 4, not 6. Oliphants from LOTR would be size 6.

[Big Dog]

Growing fury is an underrated spell.

I would try the morale reducing spell and the decay spells in evocation that are death and air, your air randoms with a skull staff can cast both. Hopefully it will get them to retreat before too many become berserk.

Mass frozen heart span also works. Liquidify and desintegrate and soul slay are also very good cause elephants have low MR. Enslave mind and charm animal are good too, but you probably can't cast charm animal as Atlantis easily.

[DragofLord]

Liquify and an enslave mind communion would probably work. I won't be able to use them here, because he was basically able to just run through my territory and crush my cap, but I mostly wanted to know for the future. I guess I can only pull my research so many different ways. I was deep in conj to kill R'lyeh and enchantment to prepare for an underwater Patala invasion, and I just didn't have any any evocation or enough alteration for 50 elephants.

[Dast]

I don’t think elephants are particularly the wrong size at size 6, to some extent it looks like they were the original definition of size 6. For some comparison a big gorilla is size 3, so an elephant having twice the footprint doesn’t seem off.

There are things in the game much bigger than elephants (Eater of Corpses), but so long as the extra size is all height it doesn’t cause any break between mechanics and theme I don’t think.

[Big Dog]

Also forgot to mention but obviously water elementals can own elephants, however it's more expensive at least in gems.

[Big Dog]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1976865149


Test done, All the big water mages had 6 water gems and spammed ice eles and the smaller mages had frozen heart x5.

The Acro mages cast growing fury and then whatever, seems to be a lot of panic, flying shards and soul slay cause I kinda have random research done for them in this test.

[DragofLord]

I did want to use water elementals/ice elementals. The only problem there was I had about 5 water income a turn by turn 40 and I had been desperately spending the gems I had fighting R'lyeh and site searching in the hopes I could find some water sites.

That is really good to know though. I guess if I had alchemized some water gems and bit the bullet I probably could have cleared that army out.

[Shinuyama]

"I don't understand how 5 earth elementals are going to hold 50 elephants."

size 6 units cannot be trampled by size 6 elephants

the elephants then use their tusk and longspear attacks against the iron skin ethereal earth elementals, who regenerate through it
Enough elephant tusk attacks will potentially kill a form, turning the earth ele into size 5 and then trampled to death
but it should by the numbers tank forever even if totally surrounded

[DragofLord]

I will have to give it a try. It doesn't really look like it would work statwise. (size 6 earth elementals have only 10 prot, 8 def, and 50 hp against 10 attack and 20 piercing damage tusks, but my main worry was the elephants that would filter past and trample the rest of my army.

That said, if I summoned 10 or even 15 that might do it.

[TheMeInTeam]

You could cast both quagmire + rigor mortis with enchantment 7 and recruitable mages, and you said you went deep into enchantment + evo. You'd need to give a death random a skull staff, though construction 4 isn't exactly pricey in research and you probably want that anyway for skull mentors.

You could similarly cast wailing winds with air random cap mage. Since that only takes 2 gems you could give death 2 air 1 a skull staff and cast it for 3 death gems. Low morale on elephants would get absolutely ruined by that.

These spells are good enough that you should probably have them available ASAP if you're already going that deep into enchantment.

You also have a national remote assassination spell that can kill their commanders if not a lot is assigned to guard them.

Note that you can also communion cap only big mage into any path it gets by forging crystal matrix at construction 4, your earth random forgiving fathers can forge it w/o any boosting/empowerment. So if you really wanted you could even communion cast mass flight and dive their commanders lol. Basically get construction 4 on this nation.

[DragofLord]

I had con 4, and was casting several spells by linking people into communions. My best advice to anyone reading this thread due to a similar problem is either size 6 troops (elementals are good), mr targeting spells, or both. Wailing winds also would have been smart. Growing fury only gives them berserk, it doesn't activate it. As long as you aren't damaging all of them at once you'll probably still route quite a few.

[El Bezidente]

Would curse of stones not have been an option? Alt 4 Earth 3, so fairly easy to access.

MR6 elephants would be 99+% likely to be affected, maybe cast 2 x for certainty?

I could be wrong, but wouldn't they then get tired running across the map slowly, and then trying to trample you?

Then you stabby stabby sleepy elephant with sticks? or evo or wutevs really, fatigued elaphants aren't gonna do much..

I'm looking at a horde of elephants in my current game and am considering it :P